


Circling Back from the Fall

by ultragirlvfr750



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, so something to look forward to then, tagged mature for the later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:39:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8171849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultragirlvfr750/pseuds/ultragirlvfr750
Summary: What happens in the minds and hearts of both Bernie and Serena after Bernie leaves for Kiev? Seen through the lens of Serena's perspective, then Bernie's, and finally a blend of them both.





	1. Serena

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deviltakehimback](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deviltakehimback/gifts).



It was strange, in the end, what she missed the most.

Serena was prepared for heartache. She was no stranger to loss, the feeling as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. 

Breathe in. Bernie Wolfe. Breathe out. Bernie Wolfe. Breathe in. And again. No preparation for how utterly constant and unrelenting it all would be. Breathe in. Bernie Wolfe. And again.

The first blow, while sat at her desk, head in her hands, muttering the phrase ‘idiot’ over and over as if the act of acknowledging it, of repeating the words aloud, could halt the constriction around her heart. 

In the bare moments that followed, the hours that became days that piled up into weeks, Serena was certain what she’d long for the most was the exquisite feeling of Bernie’s lips crashing into hers; the frenzied passion she’d finally dared to claim. The searing kiss in their office that had flamed up her body, an immolation, until they broke apart, gasping on desire. It wasn’t that she didn’t think about Bernie’s mouth on hers, and sometimes at the most inopportune times. In a budget meeting with Hanssen, signing off charts, in the middle of rounds, the memory would blow through her and more often than not, Raf would glance her way, eyebrows raised. She’d come back to herself then, red-faced. She’d kick herself that she’d lost the plot, again. She could muster no witty banter to hide her blush and to his credit Raf never asked but would gently help her find her way back to the task at hand. 

Thank God for Raf.

Thank God for small mercies. 

Thank God for shiraz and the sleep it could bring. 

Sleep, which had become such a luxury, for Serena would wake in the night, when the memory of the kiss was at its most visceral, as if the dark somehow increased the remembered sensation of Bernie’s tongue sliding effortlessly into her mouth. She would whimper, her voice echoing Bernie’s moan against her lips, Serena’s hand reflexively diving into the wet heat at the apex of her thighs, to stroke, to tease in cadence with the memory of Bernie’s hands in her hair. Their tongues tasting, exploring, her hand at the nape of Bernie’s neck, dragging her closer, needing the swell of Bernie’s breasts against her, feeling the tautness of Bernie’s hips pushing against her in the most exquisite of ways. The fingers on Serena’s free hand would tug and pinch at her own nipple as she imagined instead Bernie’s teeth, Bernie’s mouth, Bernie’s fingers strong and relentless, unravelling her utterly. 

She would come then, hard, back arched, fiercely biting the side of her palm, biting back Bernie’s name from her mouth. She would fall back, sated but sobbing, curled on her side, fingers slick from her own desire, the musky scent of her lust for a woman a thousand miles away, hanging about her in a haze. 

She hadn’t been this wet in years.  
 She couldn’t remember a time when she’d wept this much, either

Later, she would rise, eyes swollen, with her heart, and often, head aching and go through the motions of a morning routine. If she was slower than usual it didn’t matter. Breakfast was no longer appealing and the time she lost in the shower and at the mirror she more than won back with an Americano on her way up to the ward.

There was Jason to mind and with him came Countdown and endless episodes of Robot Wars to consume. They filled in the crosswords and for him she reserved her best, her most functional self. That he too missed Bernie Wolfe, of that there was no doubt, and she saw no reason to add to the confusion of this loss by emotionally absenting herself.

Autumn, and the leaves a riot of colour like fire, crackled under her feet. It was time again to bring out her scarves. Her commute and her shopping and her shifts marched relentlessly forward. There were consults, coffee, F1’s to school, and evenings at Albies. A sarcastic quip from Lou over shiraz and she’d laughed; so smiling was still possible in her world.   
 On the ward, Serena discovered a constant thread in the loss of Bernie Wolfe. She missed their seamless interactions, their own private language, perfected. A flick of the eyes, a touch, a nod. Few words needed or ever spoken, until between them the chaos of trauma transformed from the management of crisis into a dance. 

She missed the annoyance of Bernie’s persistence when questioning diagnoses, and in equal measure the annoyance that Bernie was most often right. She missed their easy banter as they stood and scrubbed at the sink. Bernie’s voice at once solid and lilting, a balm against Serena’s frayed nerves. She ached that Bernie was missing the efficiency of the trauma unit, the heart of the hub on AAU they’d created together. Serena was fiercely protective and proud, but she no longer felt a thrill when it came time to pick up the red phone. 

She could grind in the dark against the flat of her own hand, eyes squeezed shut, calling forth pleasure on the remembrance of a kiss that was neither hello nor goodbye. But there was no workaround, no half-lidded conjuring of the only woman she wanted across the table from her. Up to her elbows in blood and the weight of anxiety of another life won or lost, the ache of the hole in the air before her, the hole where Bernie Wolfe once stood with her steady hands and her calm eyes was almost unbearable. 

It was strange to discover, in the end, what she missed the most. This the distillation of her loss, how she longed for Bernie’s hands against hers as they sutured together, competent but feather light. 

“It’s ok, we’ve got this, Serena.”

The brush of her eyes and the husk of her voice. 

When Serena closed her eyes she could hear the echo.

“We’ve got this. I’ve got you. We’re home.”


	2. Bernie

If there was one thing that Bernie Wolfe had mastered it was the art of compartmentalization.

A moment, and Serena Campbell in their office, was in her arms. She could scarcely believe it, her own limbs, limp, frozen, until Serena’s hands had grabbed at the back of her neck. The taste of her lips. God, even now as Bernie allowed herself the luxury of memory, she was helpless to stem the flood of heat or the pulse beating between her thighs. Serena’s tongue, her teeth, had captured Bernie’s bottom lip and Bernie had moaned then, helplessly against Serena’s mouth. She had surrendered into Serena’s scent. 

Was this what it was like to finally breathe?

A moment, in Hanssen’s office as she’d watched her disembodied hand reach across his desk, the pencils lined up in perfect order along the edge of the blotter. Precision. Control, and their handshake perfunctory and dry, like the desert.

No, “Good luck,” or “I hope you’ll be happy,” only, “The necessary arrangements have been made.”

The necessary arrangements.  
   
Why should she need to know how to breathe?

A moment, on the ward in AAU, vision whittled down to a pinpoint, she’d admit, to save herself. Vision restricted to the charm winking in the hollow of Serena’s throat. Only the concentration on that one still point had made it possible to block out the sound of a voice she’d come to adore, reduced to a counterpoint of aching, desperate pleading. Yet after twenty-five fitful nights of sleep her arm still burned where Serena’s fingers had scrabbled for purchase before falling away in defeat. She had left no marks but Bernie didn’t need scars to access her shame. 

And still she breathed.

A moment, there had been fourteen binders that could have easily served as doorstops. Filled with forms, protocols, procedures and boxes that all needed an ‘x’ or her initial somewhere. In an office the size of a closet, she’d piled them one on top of the other, on the lone, battered desk. Her desk. Singular. Out of nowhere her throat constricted and the blinds on the door doubled, trebled and she shoved the heels of her hands, hard, against her eyes, and bit back tears hot and unbidden. “Pull yourself together, Major.” 

She breathed. But there was no smell of musk mixed with subtle gardenia; no familiar scent of Serena.

A moment, in the hotel bar. No decent shiraz, just a stream of vodka options. Sat alone, she had been reduced to this, an endless, circular conversation inside her head. Now forty days in and still Bernie scratched at the choice she’d made. The most obvious solution, an open wound and she was helpless to let it heal. The possibility of her absence had prompted Serena to proclaim, “I don’t want you to go,” essentially no different than, “I want you to stay.” Six words instead of five had kicked Bernie into fight or flight and she’d bolted. Because Bernie remembered telling her own version of that six word story, and the most obvious, the most necessary of choices was to parachute out instead of grabbing hold of Serena’s hands and the fevered hope in her eyes.

And yet, she sipped, and the vodka burned at the back of her throat, temporary relief from the constricting ache that had become her constant companion.

And yet, she mouthed words, soft against the icy rim of her glass.

“Well how about this, Serena Campbell, Occam’s Razor. For every accepted explanation of a phenomenon there are an incomprehensible number of possible and more complex alternatives.”

Serena Campbell. An incomprehensible, more complex alternative.

“You can be on my quiz team,” her voice had been warm chocolate. Joy, in the tilt of her head, the quirk of her smile, but how had Bernie failed to notice love in the strength of her constant gaze.

The equation: Desire + Risk with an unquantifiable factor of x, when the variable x is safety = Unknown

She could chalk it through on a blackboard set to infinity, but in the hidden compartment of her secret heart she understood that the answer could no longer lie in Kiev.

It was strange, in the end, what she missed the most.

The scent of gardenia mixed with musk, that had met her at every corner, in the halls, in the office, the collar of her scrubs, in her hair at the end of the evening, once. Serena, distilled, into this one sense memory.   Elusive. As necessary as the air she breathed.

The scent of home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deliberately made this chapter shorter. Trying to distill Bernie's experience into snapshots as I see her as putting her emotions into compartments.


	3. In the Garden

1.

Bernie sat in the back of the taxi and worked at slowing her breath. Her hands were restless in her lap, fingers interlaced, and she could feel the pad of her thumb grinding endless circles into her palm. She clamped her hands between her thighs and squeezed her eyes shut, running over the numbers again, her lips barely moving. Ninety and forty. Forty from ninety. Forty from ninety is fifty. It was an old army trick, to calm the breath, the mind, and one she’d not had the occasion to use for years. She’d been too numb on the plane as she flew toward Kiev, but now as the taxi crawled forward, with every passing light stanchion carrying her that much closer to the inevitable confrontation with Serena, Bernie counted and tried to breathe.

Ninety. Ninety. Ninety days. The amount of time, some experts reported, that it took to create a habit. Or was it to break a habit? Was Serena a habit that somehow needed undoing? Ninety days of secondment. A challenge, fresh perspective and a space for breath. What was the expert opinion on aching hearts? How many days before they heal? Sixty? Ninety? One hundred and ninety?

She’d lasted forty. Forty days. Forty days in a windowless office. Forty days of trauma and surgeries. Forty days of adrenaline and crises and searching for Serena’s eyes when she was up to her elbows in viscera. Forty days and still she looked up. A reflex. A habit. Forty days. Serena was on AAU and Bernie awoke in Kiev. Forty days that always began the same way, from a fitful and broken sleep.

Forty from ninety was fifty. More than half. Fifty days that she now owed Hanssen. Fifty days of breech in Kiev with no real replacement. She’d fled to the Ukraine and now she was fleeing for home. Fifty. She didn’t have it in her, fifty more days without laying eyes on Serena.

Ninety. Forty. Fifty. Ninety. Forty. Fifty.

She closed her eyes, running the numbers and breathed.

2.

She paid the driver and stepped out from the taxi into the November wind. She shivered, as much from the dread coiled in her stomach as the chill in the air. She waited until she could no longer see the taillights of the receding cab. No going back now, with her mobile flat, it would be a long walk back to the city. 

Bernie squared her shoulders, gathering herself and took the steps two at a time to Serena’s front door. She stabbed at the bell before she lost her courage. She could hear the chimes deep in the house and her breath came in shallow bursts. There were no old army tricks that could calm her now. She rang the bell again just as the front windows bathed the stoop in light. The door flung wide and Jason stood blinking, his brow furrowed. For a moment she had the irrational fear that he wasn’t going to recognize her as if she’d been gone four years instead of just forty days. Then his face broke into a smile.

“Doctor Bernie? What are you doing here? It’s almost the middle of the night and I was on my way to bed.”  “I’m sorry, Jason. You’re right it’s late and I do apologize.”

“You’re supposed to be in the Ukraine,” he barrelled on, “for another thirty-nine days. At least, that’s what Auntie Serena told me. Why are you here? Are you ill?”

“No, I’m not I’m not ill Jason,” Bernie drew her eyebrows together in confusion. “What would make you think that?”

“Auntie Serena says your secondment is very important. She says that the unit in the hospital in Kiev where you’re meant to be working especially needs your expertise. That’s why you had to leave in such a hurry.”  
   
“Yes, well they did need me,” Bernie replied, “but they’re just going to have to manage without me for a bit I’m afraid.”

“You’ve missed four episodes of Robot Wars,” Jason chided, “And Auntie Serena isn’t nearly as attentive to quiz nights as you are. She watches them with me but she never gets correct answers. Not even when I give her hints.”

“I am sorry, Jason,” Bernie felt her throat constrict. Seeing him now, backlit, listening to the familiar staccato of his speech she realized it wasn’t only Serena she’d missed while in her self-inflicted exile. “I’ve missed Robot Wars too.”

“You could have watched it in the Ukraine,” Jason explained. “You can get it on Youtube.”

“It wouldn’t have quite been the same,” Bernie tentatively reached out her hand as if to touch his arm but pulled back at the last moment. “Speaking of your Auntie Serena, I’d very much like to see her, to speak with her,” she searched for the correct phrase, “if you think she would see me.”

“She’s been very sad,” Jason’s voice was dry and gave no indication of judgement but Bernie felt the sting of his words none-the-less. “She says she’s happy. She goes to bed much later than she used to. And she doesn’t eat very much.”

“Jason, I,” Bernie struggled, “I’m not sure, perhaps this was a bad idea. Please don’t disturb her.”

Bernie turned to leave when she felt Jason’s hand, fleeting, on her shoulder. She stopped, surprise flooding through her. In all the time she had known him she had never seen him touch anyone other than Serena. 

“Auntie Serena’s in the back garden,” Jason said. “You are her good friend. It will make her feel better to see you.”

With that he moved out of the doorway and Bernie stepped into the front hall.

“You can go through the sitting room if you like but the kitchen is more direct.”

“Thank you, Jason.”

Bernie strode down the hall into the darkened sitting room. As her eyes adjusted she felt for the terrace door. She pushed through it, calling Serena’s name softly so as not to scare her. The door closed behind her with a snick and Bernie suddenly felt herself sag, backward, the handle digging into her lower back. She scarcely noticed the pain as shock blew through her.

Serena Campbell had lost weight.

She was stood at the railing with her back to Bernie, a familiar grey hoodie hanging loose around her shoulders. Bernie choked on her breath and ground her teeth together to stop herself from striding across the flagstones and gathering Serena into her into her arms.   
Bernie had left the hoodie in her middle desk drawer. There was a tear along the bottom where the stitching had come unravelled. Bernie had always meant to have it mended and then she’d simply forgotten. 

Serena had obviously gone searching. 

How many nights had she stood wrapped in it staring out into the darkness of her back garden? How many days of grief had it taken for her shoulders, her back, her waist to shrink so she’d be swimming inside of it? 

“Serena,” Bernie choked as she gripped her hands, twisting them back and forth.

“You’re back,” Serena’s voice was flat and Bernie dug her nails into her palms, “You’ve put yourself right in it with Hanssen. I’ve done what I can, but you’ve got a lot of ground to make up for.”

 Bernie bit her bottom lip unable to move as Serena turned to lean her back against the railing, arms crossed over her chest, half a glass of Shiraz in one hand. She tapped the rim of the glass absently against her lips, her usually expressive eyes, narrowed, pinning Bernie where she stood.

“Well, are you coming or leaving? ” she raised her eyebrows.

“I, um-“ 

“Make up your mind, but for God’s sake stop hovering in my bloody doorway.”

Bernie bit down on the inside of her cheek, hard enough to taste blood but she did as Serena commanded, in two easy steps eliminating the gap between them, but not the distance.

“Serena, I’m sorry, I should have rang first,” She untangled her fingers and wrapped her hands around Serena’s. They were icy cold and she felt Serena flinch. “I came straight from the airport and my mobile was flat, no-“ Bernie stopped herself, “my mobile was flat but I was afraid if we spoke on the phone-“

  “I’d refuse to see you,” Serena finished.

“You’d have every right,” Bernie whispered.

Serena’s nostrils flared but she stayed silent, slowly extricating her hands from Bernie’s.

“I can’t imagine how I’ve hurt you,” Bernie continued, “scratch that, I can actually, intimately, and you did warn me.”

“Of what, exactly?” Serena placed her wineglass, almost delicately, on the railing next to her and shoved her hands in the hoodie’s front pockets.

“Your passion for holding grudges,” Bernie answered, “you did say they were of the take-it-to-the-grave variety.”

Serena raised her eyebrows and then laughed, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“You’re giving yourself rather a lot of credit, Ms. Wolfe. I had years to regret with Edward, an entire lifetime to grieve. You rather saved us from anything as serious as that,” Serena continued. 

“You wouldn't even allow us to try.”

Serena’s voice broke then and she hunched back toward the railing, her shoulder knocking the wineglass to the stones below. It shattered, shiraz inky in the dark, running in rivulets along the cracks like rills of blood in a wound.

“Shit.”

The expletive so foreign in Bernie’s ears, she sprang into action. “Serena, I’ve got it.”

“Leave it,” Serena barked. “Just leave it be.”

Ninety. Forty. Fifty. Bernie swallowed hard, her eyes filling. Ninety. Forty. Fifty. She couldn’t afford to cry.   She had to do something, other than run, in the face of emotion for once in her life.

 Ninety. Forty. Fifty.

Bernie pulled Serena to her, in a fierce, sideways hug, Serena’s shoulder digging painfully into her breastbone. At once she was overwhelmed by the scent of gardenia and musk and she involuntarily sobbed.

“I’m sorry Serena. I’m so sorry,” she mouthed the words against Serena’s ear, a mantra, like the numbers, only the words were more solid, more real.

“I’m sorry I ran, sorry I was afraid it was too soon, sorry I transferred that onto you,” the sentences tumbled on top of one another, “sorry for where I did it and how, I’m sorry. I’m sor-“

“Stop. Please,” Serena’ phrase an echo in Bernie’s ears. “Just stop,” she raised her eyes, turning her head to look at Bernie. 

Bernie could feel Serena’s hand between them, balled into a fist pushing against her belly. 

“Pleading is an awful thing. A desperate thing,” her voice was bitter, “I should know. And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone I truly, care about.”

“But I need to make it right,” Bernie said, “I have to make it right.”  

Serena turned so she was facing Bernie and slowly removed her hands from her pockets. The knuckles were white from how tightly she’d been holding on and Bernie knew if she looked there would be nail marks in both of her palms. She longed to tip Serena’s hands up and kiss each one but instead she wrapped her arms around Serena’s waist, pulling her imperceptibly closer.   
   
Serena cupped Bernie’s face in her palms and for one dizzying moment Bernie thought she meant to kiss her.

“What if you can’t?” Serena asked quietly, instead.

“What if I can’t fix it you mean?” Bernie’s voice trailed off.

 “What if you can’t make it right? People aren’t just things, Bernie, objects, that you can put down and come back to when you’re ready.”

“Serena, please let me-“

“Let me finish,” Serena held Bernie’s eyes and Bernie willed herself not to stiffen, willed herself to hold Serena’s gaze. 

She’d come to Serena’s prepared for anything, tears, a right bollocking, or at worst the flat out refusal to let her in, but looking into the depths of the wound in the eyes of the woman she loved, a wound that she herself had caused, was almost too much for Bernie to bear. 

And yet she held on. 

Ninety. Forty. Fifty. And breathe. Because she instinctively understood that if they had any hope at all, of forgiveness, of trust regained, or a chance to rebuild the fledgling love between them, they each had to witness the other’s pain. 

'Perhaps that’s what love is. Defending the indefensible.'

That despite their flaws, Bernie would see her and stand her ground; that she would finally allow Serena to gaze into the compartment of her secret heart and see her laid bare.

“The worst of it wasn’t you leaving,” Serena explained. “I told you, if it was what you really, really wanted that I wouldn’t stand in your way. And even though, it’s true, I didn’t want you to go, and I told you, perhaps in a desperate and rather daft way, if you’d come to me and said that Kiev was what you truly desired, we could have avoided this entire mess.”  
   
Bernie felt her cheeks burn under the softness of Serena’s hands and still she held on.

“The worst wasn’t you leaving. I would have missed you. God I would have missed you,” she paused, “I have missed you.”

 Bernie felt her shoulders relax and she opened her mouth to speak. Serena moved her thumb over Bernie’s lips to still her voice and even though Bernie knew the gesture was meant to silence and not to arouse she was helpless to stop the sudden flash of desire.

“I know I terrified you, telling you I was falling in love, and I can take the consequences for that on the chin, as it were,” Serena went on relentlessly, “I’ve never been very good at holding back. It’s why I’ve never much seen the point in just one glass of shiraz. It’s a bit of a design flaw, I know,” she smiled. “So it made sense to me, you needing to shut me out. You made some unilateral decision in your head based on information I wasn’t privy to and suddenly you weren’t seeing me anymore. I was just an entity, some silly, desperate woman you needed to run from. But that still wasn’t the worst thing."

The worst thing was that you lied to me. Again.”

“What, no Serena,” Bernie did try to speak but Serena pressed her thumb harder against Bernie’s mouth.

“That night when you left, you pushed me from you, physically removed me from the closeness of your body, but your hands were shaking and your eyes were glued to the floor. Lying by omission may come easily to you, Bernie, but in person it most definitely isn’t your strong suit.” 

Serena continued, her eyes never wavering. 

“You said you were leaving to save me from myself. That was a lie, Major. The only person you were saving that night was you.”

Serena let her hands fall and sighed.

“I loathe subversion of the truth. I lived with it for years, with Edward, and I won’t live like that again.”

Bernie felt tears, hot and unbidden, flood her eyes. They spilled across her cheeks as she finally allowed herself to cry, a keening low in the back of her throat as she finally surrendered to the pain of defeat.

She sobbed, past the point of shame, all the sleepless nights alone in the dark of her hotel bed searching for a way back home to Serena now fruitless and wasted. 

She stumbled backward and would have tripped but Serena’s arms were suddenly around her, one hand at the nape of her neck, the other in the small of her back. Serena’s face pressed against the side of her neck, her voice anguish in Bernie’s ear.

“And the bugger of it all, I wanted so much to hate you, Berenice Wolfe. I tried, I made the effort, I really did. But in the end all I could do was miss you.”

Bernie’s arms tightened around Serena gathering her into a fierce embrace. She buried her face in Serena’s neck, running her hands over Serena’s back, aching that grief had stolen the lushness from her curves.

“Christ, I missed you too.”  
   
They clung to one another.

“I don’t want you to go.”

Bernie lifted her head and ghosted her lips over Serena’s eyes, the side of her nose, trailing light kisses along the ridge of her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth. She felt Serena’s breath hitch in her chest as she brushed her lips over Serena’s tentatively, at first and then with more force. Serena moaned and pushed her hips against Bernie’s as Bernie’s tongue slid inside her mouth, tasting, seeking. The kiss deepened, Serena’s hands tangling in Bernie’s hair, and she used the tip of her tongue to delicately trace Bernie’s upper lip. She scraped her thumbnail in tandem along her lower lip and Bernie gasped as she felt wetness flood between her thighs.

She pulled back, panting.

“Serena, we-“

“I know what I want, and I want you to stay.” Serena’s voice was a low, insistent and there was a challenge in her eyes.

Bernie drew Serena into her arms, cradling her head against her chest to rest just under her chin, burying her face in the scent of Serena’s hair. 

Her heart hammering, hard. Ninety. Forty. Fifty.

“I want you.” 

She breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this fic decided it wanted to be another chapter. So the fourth one will be up as soon as I can manage.


	4. The Fall

1.

In the end she stayed.

They stood without speaking, wrapped in one another staring out into the back garden and the night beyond until Serena lost track of everything but scent and sensation. Bernie’s arms, strong around her waist. Bernie’s mouth in her hair, her lips moving in some silent, rhythmic mantra, the words ethereal and outside of Serena’s grasp. The smell of her, smoke and the remnants of vanilla. Serena breathed. The acrid scent of perspiration and travel. She interlaced their icy fingers and finally tipped her head up, her voice a low hum next to Bernie’s ear.

“You’re freezing.”

“I don’t care.”

Serena’s laugh had been throaty and rich.

“Come on, let’s warm you up.”

Serena pulled Bernie through the darkness of the house, her arm twisting awkwardly behind her as they climbed quietly toward the privacy of her bedroom. She felt a twinge from her wrist but she was loathe to let go. Now that Bernie was finally here and not a figment of her desperate longing, she was taking no chances. 

The glow from her beside lamp was muted, and only when Bernie was standing next to her bed, the door behind them well and truly closed, did she dare release her fingers. Wordlessly, she reached up to push Bernie’s coat from her shoulders, her eyes downcast. She felt an aching throb between her legs but she faltered, suddenly shy. Bernie shrugged out of the garment and Serena watched as it tumbled to the floor. Bernie kissed the side of her face, her tongue circling the sensitive shell of Serena’s ear. She trailed her lips along the ridge of Serena’s cheek before grazing them softly over her mouth. 

Serena lost herself then, her mouth opening, seeking. She felt the tip of Bernie’s tongue against hers and she whimpered, her hands pushing under Bernie’s shirt, fingertips brushing against soft skin. Bernie moaned against her mouth and tilted her hips forward, pressing against the apex of Serena’s thighs and she felt a flood of wetness between them to accompany the ache.   
 Serena had wanted before, she was no stranger to taking pleasure, but never had she felt such hot, dizzying need. She bit at Bernie’s bottom lip and felt as though she might drown. She broke the kiss, her breath coming in ragged gasps and looked into Bernie’s eyes. In the half light they were huge, her pupils blown with desire. 

“If you kiss me like that for much longer I don’t think your shirt will survive the onslaught,” Serena whispered.

“Buttons are highly overrated,” Bernie murmured against her mouth.

“As much as I’m loathe for this to end, even for a moment, after the day you’ve had, you should, you could,” Serena blushed, “what I mean is, you must want to shower.”

“Only if you’re joining me.”

2.

Heat. Steam. The elusive scent of vanilla in Bernie’s hair and Serena breathed, her heart trip-hammering in her chest as the spray needled between them. 

Water in rivulets travelled the hollow between Bernie’s breasts, snaking across the hard planes of her abdomen, before disappearing into the darkened blonde triangle of her sex, only to reappear and trail in rivers down the line of her legs.

Suddenly self conscious, Serena wrapped one arm over the softness of her midsection, the other across her breasts, pushing them back against her chest. Water pooled in her palm, a lump forming in the back of her throat and she shut her eyes against tears. 

She breathed. Heat, vanilla and steam.  
 She felt Bernie’s hands, warm and solid slide over her shoulders, tugging at her arms, forcing her to gently release her desperate hold.

“Let go, please,” she pulled Serena into a wet embrace, their bellies sliding together, her voice barely audible over the hiss of the shower.

“Do you have any idea how much I want you?”

Their kiss, hungry at first became soft, languid, as the water poured endlessly between them, heightening their sense of arousal. Serena surrendered into the welter of their hands sliding over skin, entwining, only to release again, fingertips touching, seeking, discovering the map of their bodies for the first time, as if they could read one another in braille. 

Time ceased and there was only Bernie’s hands and Bernie’s mouth, until the water cooled, the steam settling in droplets, stippling against their skin. Still wrapped together, she reached over and shut off the spray, her mouth pressed against the wet sweetness of Bernie’s hair.

“Take me to bed.”

3.

 Bernie’s mouth was on her breast and she’d lost the ability to catch her breath.

They’d fallen into the bed, a tangle of warm limbs and wet hair, Bernie’s fingers, hovering, tracing over Serena’s curves.

Bernie’s mouth was on her breast, her tongue flicking the nipple taut. She sucked, then bit and Serena writhed beneath her.

Serena whimpered as Bernie withdrew her lips. She palmed Serena’s breasts as she slowly inched her way lower. Coming to rest on her knees, she hovered, her heat radiating against Serena’s thighs and she shuddered.

“Please,” Serena’s voice a low whine.   Without taking her eyes off of Serena’s she lowered her hips, until she could feel the rasp of damp curls. Bernie circled her hips lightly, teasing, leaning in, her hair a canopy about Serena’s face. She rocked, pulled back, and rocked again. 

Serena’s breath came in short, sharp gasps, matching the almost unbearable pulsing between her legs.

Bernie slid further, ghosting her lips over Serena’s breasts, blowing lightly on each nipple before placing a long line of kisses over the swell of her belly, lower, until she buried her mouth in the dark hair at the top of Serena’s sex. 

She breathed.  

Bernie inhaled the heady scent of musk, and felt an answering flood of arousal. Her hands under Serena’s lush hips she nipped at the soft flesh.

Bernie planted a trail of kisses and Serena writhed again. With the tip of her tongue Bernie parted Serena’s folds, touching, tasting, seeking for the hard point of her pleasure. 

Serena shuddered, her hands twining in Bernie’s hair, pulling her forward. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, her rush of breath a moan.

 “Please.”

Bernie lazed circles over Serena’s taut centre, thumb teasing at the entrance to her sensitive opening. Serena rocked her hips mindlessly against Bernie’s mouth, revelling in the exquisite throbbing as Bernie’s fingers thrust, gently at first and then with more force.   
 Bernie fluttered her fingers. She bit and sucked, as Serena grabbed at the sheets, her body an impossible arc. She cried out, Bernie’s name tumbling from her mouth as she shattered, utterly undone, falling, unravelling, wave upon wave. 

For one heart stopping moment she hovered in the space between breath.

Exhale, arms flung over her face, she came back to herself as Bernie slid along the length of her, gathering her, nose to nose, twining their feet together. 

“Sleep now, Fräulein,” she murmured as Serena instinctively reached toward her, longing to trace her fingers for the first time through the wetness of musk that was not her own.

Bernie brought Serena’s fingers to her lips, kissing the tips.

“It will keep,” her voice husky and rich, “I’ll be here in the morning.”

4\. 

Later in the dark, she rose from the depths of a dreamless sleep. She was cradled in Bernie’s arms, Bernie’s hand twitching mindlessly against her belly, Bernie’s mouth buried in her hair. Serena hushed the words into the air, as it was not yet time to wake her.

I love you.

5\. 

In the depths of Serena’s bed, in the silence before the world would spin itself awake, Bernie watched Serena sleep, her eyes never leaving Serena’s face as she listened to the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing. In and out a gentle, endless sigh. Serena, a mantra. Ninety. Forty. Fifty. Her mantra.

She leaned in close, to speak.

Ninety. Forty. Fifty.


End file.
